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1 big SSD or multiple? New NAS build. (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/datahoarder@lemmy.ml
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I'm looking to spec out a new NAS. I have a relatively small media collection, that I hope to grow as I digitize more family VHS tapes etc. Right now I have around 4 TB of data, shared across an external drive and my internal ssd.

Whats the best path forward on drives in this new NAS? I've heard advice for buying one big 20TB drive over multiple smaller drives. What's best for mitigation of drive failure? Is that even a concern? If I do multiple drives, should I use RAID?

I'm a little new to this. If you have resources for learning some best practices I'm all ears.

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[–] 2 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

so something like RAID 4, 5, 6, or 10 is a great start.

Sorry - whilst most of your advice is great, this is a bit misleading.

  • RAID 4 is very rarely used. It's not a particularly safe or efficient use of striping, and was replaced by 5 shortly after it was invented.

  • RAID 5 itself is now strongly discouraged for large arrays. (Google, "don't use raid 5 for large arrays" for literally millions of pages explaining this, but it basically boils down to; "If a drive fails, the chance of a second drive failing whilst rebuilding is very high")

But 6 is good if you've got enough drives and 10 (1+0) is also a fairly well regarded method for arrays of equal-numbered arrays.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    With 4, you are correct, I went from top of my head back what we learned in high school 15 or so years ago. 5 is still better than nothing if you don't have the resources to get one more drive for 6. Of course, the best is completely mirroring all stuff to a separate geo location.

    It all boils down to willingness of spending money for more durability.

    I've edited my comment to scratch R4. But R5 is still great for smaller arrays, and it is possible to, for example, have RAID 5 for movies, and RAID 6 for photos.

    There are also combinations of RAID levels, like aforementioned 10. There is a nice comparison table with apparent drive requirements and fault tolerance on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

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